Short Takes

Confused voters can find
clarity on state propositions when the residents’ group Upper
Noe Neighbors
holds its Oct. 10 meeting at Upper Noe Recreation Center, 295
Day St.

A speaker from the League of Women Voters will
present the pros
and cons of local and state propositions, including
Propositions 30 and 38, two
dueling tax measures that seek to bolster public schools
either through sales
tax or income tax. There will also be discussion of
Proposition 37, which
requires genetically modified food to be labeled as such.

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan
political organization
that helps voters understand election-day issues. They will
give a neutral
presentation on the measures, which will be followed by
discussion.

The program, which starts at 7:30 p.m., is
co-hosted by Friends of
Noe Valley Recreation Center to support educational resources
for voters.

In addition, Upper Noe Neighbors will convene its
quarterly
meeting and introduce Belinda Kerr, the new owner of
­O’Greenberg’s bar at the
corner of 29th and Dolores streets.

—Heather World

Odd Itinerary

You can journey from the Middle East to the
Midwest without
leaving the comfort of Phoenix Books on 24th Street when the
Odd Mondays series
resumes in October.

Loss and love share the stage Oct. 15. Teacher
and author Nitza
Agam will read from her memoir, Scent of Jasmine. The
book
describes the loss of Agam’s fiancé during the Yom Kippur War
in 1973. In
addition, Sarah Isaias will read from her crosscultural novel
about an
Arab-Israeli relationship, A New Song.

You can learn a foreign language on Oct. 29, when
former
journalist Paul Hustedler reads from his memoir, titled Never
Felt
Better, Looked Worse, Nor Had Less: Growing Up Off Center in
the Middle West. Hustedler
describes the book as “sort of Armistead Maupin meets Prairie
Home
Companion.” The story is told in a series of vignettes
from his life as the
youngest of three boys living near Kansas City, and it is
peppered with phrases
not heard in San Francisco, like “Good gosh all hem stitch!”

All Odd Mondays events are free and start at 7
p.m. at Phoenix
Books, 3957 24th St. The evenings are preceded by a no-host
supper at 5:30 p.m.
at Haystack Pizza, 3881 24th St. For more information,
visit www.oddmondays.com.

—Heather World

Artists Open Their Doors

The
images that Noe Valley artist Ellen Little paints from
nature will be on display Oct. 27–28 as part of SF Open
Studios.

Noe Valley artist Ellen Little doesn’t have to
travel far to find
inspiration for her watercolors and oil paintings. She merely
has to stroll
through the backyard garden at her Jersey Street home.

Little’s paintings of butterflies, flowers, and
moths will be on
display this month as part of SF Open Studios, an annual event
organized by the
nonprofit ArtSpan.

Little is among some two dozen artists in Noe
Valley who will open
their living rooms, studios, and garages to art patrons,
collectors, and the
curious on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 27 and 28, from 11 a.m.
to 6 p.m. Showing
that same weekend will be hundreds more artists living in the
Mission, Bernal
Heights, and the Castro.

In total, more than 900 artists across the city
will participate
in the free, month-long Open Studios showcase, which starts
Oct. 13-14 and ends
Nov. 3-4.

The event will be the second Open Studios
appearance for Little,
53, who shuttered her graphic design firm, Little Design
Studio, in 2010 to
devote full-time to painting.

She says her “loose and spontaneous” paintings,
which have their
roots in abstract expressionism, range in price from $50 to
$2,500. To see more
of her work, visitwww.ellenlittle.com.

For images and information about all the artists
in SF Open
Studios, go towww.artspan.org.